Water security is one of the biggest growing concerns across several parts of the world. In USA alone, an average day uses for a family is hundred gallons of water and most of it turns into greywater as a result of baths, laundry, and runoff from sinks. As a new way to water recycling, a group of engineers and architects at the UC Berkeley recently started working over a device that collects grey water from a building all along the day and then cleans it thoroughly.it is not as clean as to be used for drinking or cooking purposes but you can always use it again for flushing toilets and washing your dirty clothes. Along with, it can also be used for solar heating.

This device is a blend of filtration system along with a solar array that can be mounted simply over any side of building that gets maximum sunlight. Its design depends on a process called photocatalytic disinfection. On the inner ends of solar panels, the rounded glass surface is coated with gold nanoparticles that react chemically with UV lights coming from Sun. The reaction procedure produces molecules that can kill microbes keeping the water safe for further reuse. The heated water can be easily recirculated across the floor heating systems that can warm up the building.

The UC Berkeley architect named Maria Paz Gutierrez is working in association with a bioengineer Luke Lee and an environmental engineer Slav Hermanowicz. The three have been testing different prototypes to find out how they can configure the setup in the best manner. The team hopes that this technique will be all ready for commercial purposes in next ten years and will be significant in several parts of the world where water is in extreme shortage. Slav adds, “Using water only once is the norm in pretty much all of the developed world. We want to use it at least twice. In this way we can cut the water demand, use solar energy—which is free—and we can also potentially capture that energy for other usage.”

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Filed Under: News
Tagged With: Research
 

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